1. Describe and evaluate what Pfizer is doing with its PfizerWorks.
They are outsourcing a menial task because it costs less to pay an Indian company with minimum wage laws that haven’t been updated since 1948 than it does to pay for a Harvard graduates salary. Overall l would say this is typical of most large American companies who are just trying to bring up the bottom line for stockholders. This may not be the answer from the book you were looking for but it’s how I would describe and evaluate what they’re doing.
However, if you would like the textbook answer it may look like this. Pfizer is outsourcing a menial task that is time consuming and not the best possible use of its resources therefore, not efficient. It also creates an opportunity for regular employees to get a taste of what it takes to be a manager by planning, organizing, leading, and control a team towards a common goal in an efficient and time effective manner.
2. We’ve defined managers as those individuals in an organization who direct and oversee the activities of other people in the organization. (a.) What challenges might there be for mangers when those “people” are halfway around the world? (b.) How might the four management functions be useful in dealing with those challenges? (c.) What skills would managers need to be able to function effectively in this type of arrangement? a. Challenges would include the obvious, you can’t see your team to “lead” or oversee your team directly.
Another issue is the time differences, having to change your work schedule to meet what the many on the other end need.
Then there’s always the cultural issue, especially in this instance since the company is in India. You would have to modify all your concepts from the free market democracy to fit India’s economic, political, social and cultural climate. b. You would have to act more like a top manager even if you were a first level manager. You would have to spend more time planning and organizing so when you actually met with your people via teleconference or skype you could lead and control the meeting in a timely and organized fashion to accomplish all the goals of that meeting. c. In order of most to least important skills:
Political, conceptual, interpersonal, and technical.
3. Do you think PfizerWorks would work for someone who’s a first-line manager? Why or why not? I believe that something like PfizerWorks could work for a first line manager it simply depends on the individual and what skill set they bring to the table. I would not put a fresh out of college with no real life job experience in this situation. However, someone who has been working in management for 10 years or so and just got the degree to complement the job may be capable of dealing with the type of managerial style this would require.
4. Do you think this arrangement would work for other types of organizations? Why or why not? What types of organizations might it also work for? Again, I believe this would depend on what type of organization we’re talking about. Obviously, a mom and pop gas station may not be as accustomed to dealing with the intricacies of a multi-cultural global work environment. However a large national bank with may do just fine with it. The reasoning for this is always based on experience, type of environment, and overall goal of the company.
If a business is simply in it to open 1 or 2 stores, that this arrangement may not work well due to cost concerns, time to research the agreement to see how beneficial it may be, and the political skills required to make an arrangement like this in the first place. However if the mission of the company is to go state wide and eventually national, then something like this may prove a cost savings for them and benefit them in the long haul so their top people can be working on expansion and not menial tasks.
Works Cited:
Too little, for too long (n.a.) retrieved from http://www.indiatogether.org/2006/feb/ed…
Does India have a minimum wage rate??? helppp!? (n.a.) retrieved from https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071217221748AA7JXYd
Saint Leo University. (2011). MGT 301: Business resources (Custom). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
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